The Taipei Film Commission yesterday signed an agreement with the Paris-based Ile de France Film Commission on mutual assistance in film production and marketing, and promised to seek more international cooperation in the future.
Upon the signing of the agreement, Taipei became the first city in Asia to formally cooperate with the Ile de France Film Commission, one of the 12 film commissions under the Commission Nationale de Filme France.
“The cooperation between Taipei and Paris in film production and marketing will not only promote the development of the film industry in the two cities, but also contribute to more cultural exchanges,” Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said.
Hau said he expected a rapid development of Taipei’s film industry via international cooperation.
Noting France’s interests in Taiwanese films, director of the Ile de France Film Commission Olivier-ReneVeillon said the French film commission has assisted award-winning Taiwanese directors Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) and Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮) in shooting films previously.
“We want to cooperate with more Taiwanese directors from younger generations, and we hope the cooperation will create more movies that are original and popular,” he said.
After the agreement is inked, television and film producers in the two cities will enjoy the preferential treatment granted to local producers.
Parisian filmmakers working in Taipei, for example, will be issued “preferential cards for film production,” and film producers from Taipei will receive similar treatment in Paris, the Taipei Film Commission said. Yesterday’s ceremony to sign the agreement also attracted well-known directors and movie stars from Taiwan’s film industry to support the Taipei-Paris cooperation agreement.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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